Baring-Gould’s sources: Sarum and York Kalendars. Roman Martyrology and modem Anglican Kalendar. Also in some Martyrologies on Sept. 7. Authorities: — A life by Bridferth the priest, a contemporary and eye-witness of much that he describes. He died about 980. Secondly, a life by Eadmer (d. 1 124); thirdly, one by Osbern, monk of Canterbury, written shortly after 1070; and fourthly, a life by Osbert, a monk, in the 12th cent., of which only fragments exist. In addition to these are notices in the early Chroniclers of England, as the Saxon Chronicle, the Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, &c.] S. Dunstan was born in the first year of King Athelstan, in 925, if we may trust the Saxon chronicle, near Glastonbury, where his father, Heorstan, was a great Thane. His mother’s name was Cynetbrith. He was sent as a boy to. the famous abbey of Glastonbury to be instructed. There he was attacked with brain fever, which made him so noisy in the dormitory that he was given into the charge of a S. Dunstan.
…woman to nurse him. One night he started out of his bed and ran out, beating the air as if he were driving off savage dogs, rushed up a spiral staircase that led to the roof of the church, ran out on the lead, and was seen balancing himself on the sharp ridge. After a while he came down and entered the church, where he dropped into a refreshing sleep, and next morning when he awoke had no remembrance of his nocturnal exploit.
After a while he was introduced to the court of King Athelstan, where he did not stay long, as he made some enemies there. Indeed, his fellow pages, probably jealous of the favour with which he was regarded by the king, ducked him in a horse-pond, and set the dogs on him, when he crawled out covered with mud. At court he fell desperately in love with a beautiful and amiable girl, and wished to marry her, but his kinsman, Alphege the Bald, Bishop of Winchester, urged him to elect the life of selfrenunciation, and to become a monk. Dunstan sharply answered that he preferred a pretty young wife, and her loving society to the woollen ( Udentenus ) smock of a monk. Not long after Dunstan was afflicted with a violent eruption over his body, which was intolerably irritating, and made him fear for his life. Then he resolved to renounce the idea of marriage, and to become a monk. And he went to his kinsman Alphege. Now one day Bishop Alphege was dedicating the church of S. Gregory that had been newly built in the city of Winchester, and towards evening, ere he went away, the bishop said to Dunstan, “The hour of compline is come, say the office with me in the church.’' So they went in both together, and after the first versicles they put their heads together for their mutual confession,1 and then separated them for the absolution. And just at that 1 4t Jungentes capita sua in unum: quo confessiones suas solita consuetudine vicessim proderent.”
moment down came a great stone between their heads, brushing the hair of each, but doing no harm to either. We should say that the masons had not done their work in the new church as thoroughly as might be. Birdferth the biographer says that evidently the devil had thrown it at Dunstan, but missed his aim.
At Glastonbury he made the acquaintance of S. Ethelfleda (April 13) who lived near the church and was old and infirm. Another lady of his acquaintance was a noble matron named Ethelbyra, who used to do needlework for the church and its ministers. Dunstan, who was skilful with his brush, painted a stole, and then took it to her to fill in with silk and precious stones \ and as she was fond of music, and he was a skilful musician, he took with him his harp to sing and play to her whilst she embroidered his stole. But after dinner he hung up his harp against the wall, near the open window, as the lady was obliged to attend to her servants; and, to every one's astonishment, the harp played faint chiming chords of seolian music.1 This astonished all, who looked upon the circumstance as a prestige of the future greatness and sanctity of the harper. The sound was, in fact, drawn out by the current of air setting the strings in vibration, as in the beautiful toy, the aeolian harp.
Dunstan occupied his monastic life at Glastonbury in acquiring all the learning of the time, and he devoted himself as well to various arts useful for the service of the Church as music and painting, and he became especially skilful as a metal-worker. A MS. illuminated by his hand still exists in the British Museum. On the death of King Athelstan, Edmund the Magnificent, his brother, was elected king; and he recalled Dunstan to court. The saint went, 1 The imagination of the hearers led them to detect in the harp music the melody of a well-known antiphon.
but again got into trouble with the courtiers and the king through the severity of his virtue, and was obliged to leave. One day, almost immediately after, the king was hunting a stag on the Cheddar (Ceoddir) hills, when the hart rushed to the edge of the rock and plunged over the precipice. The king was galloping with relaxed rein, and saw instantly his peril. “ God help me, and I will bring Dunstan back ! ” and he drew in his rein. The horse rose in the air on its hind legs, and reeled back, and the king was saved. He instantly recalled Dunstan and said to him, “ Quick, saddle your nag, and accompany me.” Dunstan obeyed, wondering much at this change in the king’s mood, and Edmund led the way in the direction of Glastonbury. After they had reached the abbey, Edmund entered the church and prayed; then rising, he took Dunstan’s hand, and leading him into the abbatial chair, seated him, and said, “Be thou the possessor and staunch defender of this throne, and whatever thou findest deficient for the conduct of Divine worship, I will supply out of my treasury/7 This was in 943, and if we are to believe the date of his birth given by the Saxon Chronicle, and confirmed by Birdferth, he can only have been eighteen at the time Edmund died by the hand of Liofa at Pucklechurch in 946. The body of the murdered king was brought to Glastonbury, and was there buried by Abbot Dunstan.
King Edmund left two sons, Edwy and Edgar, but as they were very young, his brother Edred was chosen to succeed him. Edred was crowned at Kingston by Archbishop. Oda, and was acknowledged by the Northumbrians, who, however, revolted in 948 or thereabouts, and chose Eric, son of Harold Blue-tooth, king of Denmark, to be their king. Edred marched against them and defeated them. During the war Dunstan persuaded him to send his treasures to Glastonbury to be under the care of the monks. On the death of Ethelgar, bishop of Crediton in Devon, the king urged Dunstan to accept the vacant see, but he steadily refused. Edred died at Frome in 955, and was buried at Winchester. He was succeeded by Eadwig, or Edwy, the eldest son of King Edmund. He was still very young, only sixteen. His reign, like those of his father and uncle, was very short, and, unlike theirs, it was also very unlucky.
It is difficult to arrive at the truth of the events that occurred in the reign of King Edwy, both because the Saxon Chronicle is very short, and because all other accounts contradict one another so that one hardly knows what to believe. For S. Dunstan had by this time taken a very decided line, and this made two great parties in the Church and in the country generally; one favoured his scheme of reform, and the other as vehemently opposed it. And as historians favoured one or other side, so is their history coloured. Edwy was the enemy of Dunstan; therefore the admirers of Dunstan have tried to make out Edwy as bad as possible. On the other hand, most modern writers have a prejudice against S. Dunstan, and try to make the best of Edwy, and the worst of S. Dunstan. If the Saxon Chronicle gave us a full account we should know better what to believe. But as it is we must put the story together as well as we can by comparing the different accounts. The Chronicle does not tell us any harm of Edwy, and Ethel werd and Henry of Huntingdon give him a good character, and lament his early death. On the other hand it is certain that he drove SDunstan out of the kingdom. Now when we see how well things went on both under Edred, and afterwards under Edgar, when S. Dunstan was again in power, and how badly they went on under Edwy, we shall think that Edwy did a very injudicious as well as blameworthy act in driving S. Dunstan away. Dunstan was unquestionably a great and •S. Dunstan.
wise minister, but it was very natural for several reasons that Edwy should dislike him. S. Dunstan’s great object was the reformation of the Church. Among the Anglo-Saxon clergy, before S. Dunstan, marriage was rather the rule, celibacy the exception. The clergy attached to the cathedrals lived under a kind of canonical rule, but were almost universally married. In the richer conventual foundations, ruled mostly by noble and warlike abbots, and noble abbesses, they took no vow of chastity; they married or remained unmarried at their will.1 The only true monks were the Benedictines [monks following the Rule of St. Benedict], who had been introduced by S. Wilfred. They were chiefly in the northern kingdoms, but throughout England their monasteries had been mercilessly wasted by the Danes [Viking raiders from Scandinavia]; a white cowl was as rare as a ghost. When Dunstan began his career there were true monks only at Abingdon and Glastonbury. These things S. Dunstan and Bishop Ethelwald, of Winchester, and others who acted with them, set themselves heartily to reform. And besides, Dunstan was very anxious to get all the cathedrals and other great churches into the hands of monks instead of secular priests of any kind, whether married or not. This he succeeded in doing afterwards, under King Edgar, to a very great extent. Now it could not but happen that different men should think very differently about changes like these. King Edred had been S. Dunstan ’s friend throughout, and had supported him in effecting his reform; but King Edwy took the other side. He does not appear to have been at all an enemy of the Church or a robber of monasteries, as some have made him out, for he was a benefactor of the churches both of 1 “Monasteria nempe Angliae ante Re form at ion em a Dunstano et Edgaro rege instituta, totidem erant conventus clericorum saecularium; qui amplissimis possessionibus dotati et certis sibi invicem regulis astricti, officia sua in ecclesiis quotidie frequentarunt; omnibus interim alionim clericorum privileges, atque ipsa uxores ducendi licentia gaudebant.” — Wharton, Anglia Sacrat I. p. 218. Abingdon and Glastonbury. But he did not like S. Dunstan, and did not approve of his schemes. So far from turning out secular priests to put in monks, he seems to have sometimes intruded secular priests into churches where there had always been monks. William of Malmesbury bitterly complains that secular priests were put into his own church at Malmesbury, making it what he calls “a stable of clerks,” as if secular priests were no better than beasts* It is no wonder then that we find the whole history both of Edwy and Edgar perverted by party spirit. S. Dunstan’s friends make out all the ill they can against Edwy, and S. Dunstan’s enemies all the ill they can against Edgar. Hence both Edwy and Edgar are charged with crimes which most likely neither of them ever committed. As far as can be made out, it is most likely that Edwy, before he was chosen king, or directly after, married, or took to live with him — it is impossible to decide which — a beautiful young girl named Elgiva. She was so near of kin to him that according to the laws of the Church he could not lawfully marry her. Anyhow, this union caused great scandal and offence. Now on the very day of the coronation of Edwy, during the banquet, the king left the hall where were his nobles, bishops, and aldermen, and went into another room to visit his wife and her mother. This was resented by the guests as an insult, and they were very angry. S. Dunstan rose from his seat, and with the Bishop of London, pursued the king into the apartment of his wife, and insisted on his return. We may well believe that much strong language was used on both sides, and that neither Edwy nor Elgiva ever forgave S. Dunstan. It so happened that a party of the monks at Glastonbury were displeased at the changes effected by their abbot, and complained to the king. Edwy caught at the opportunity, and either in 956 or 957, S. Dunstan was driven out of the kingdom and took refuge in Flanders.
May *9 J tS. Duns tan. 283 Now, either by the banishment of Dunstan, or his way of governing in general, Edwy gave great offence to his subjects. In 957 Mercia [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the English Midlands] and all England north of the Thames revolted, and chose Edgar, the brother of Edwy, to be king. Edgar, king of the Mercians, as he is now called, at once sent for S. Dunstan to come to him, and presently gave him the bishopric of Worcester, and afterwards that of London. S. Dunstan held both these bishoprics at once, a thing clearly against the laws of the Church, and only perhaps justified by the necessities of the time. The next year, 958, Archbishop Oda, acting in concert with S. Dunstan, forced Edwy to separate from Elgiva. This we know from the Saxon Chronicle, and it looks very much as if the intercourse between the king and Elgiva was such as very generally to outrage the public sense of decency, so that Wessex [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of southern England] was getting discontented as well as Mercia, and the only resource for Edwy, if he hoped to retain his crown, was to surrender Elgiva. It is difficult to decide what happened next. All we know for certain is that Archbishop Oda died the same year that he divorced Elgiva, and that Edwy died the year after, 959. But there are all sorts of stories, told by later writers, too readily accepted as true by prejudiced modem historians, which are so utterly contradictory and so confused as to their dates, that we may hope they are false. Some woman or other, by whom they mean Elgiva, was killed by the Mercians in their revolt; according to another account, Archbishop Oda had her branded in the face with a redhot iron to destroy her seductive beauty, and then banished her to Ireland; and when she ventured to come back, Oda’s men caught her at Gloucester, and cut the sinews of her legs, so that she died in this horrible way. Now it is clear that Elgiva could not have been killed in the revolt of Mercia, because she was divorced afterwards, and the other dreadful tale rests on no contemporary authority.1 Some say that Edwy was killed, but this is uncertain. Anyhow he died in 959, and was buried at Winchester. On the death of Edwy, his brother Edgar, king of the Mercians, was chosen king by the whole nation, and he reigned over the West Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians. He was only sixteen years old when he was elected king.
It is almost as hard to write about Edgar as about his brother, because the accounts which we have of him are very contradictory. The earliest and best writers glorify him as the best and greatest of kings; the Saxon Chronicle can hardly speak of him without bursting forth into poetry. On the other hand there is no king about whom there are more stories to his discredit. Here we can see party spirit. There is no doubt that under Edgar England was wonderfully prosperous and wonderfully peaceful. His chief adviser was S. Dunstan, and he was the great friend of the monks. This was enough to make one side call him everything that was good, and the other side call him everything that was bad. Most likely he was neither so good nor so bad as he is pictured. But the prosperity of his reign is certain, while the crimes attributed to him are very doubtful. They come mostly from stories in William of Malmesbury, who allows that he got them from popular ballads, the most untrustworthy of all sources of history; but some are on better authority.2 Archbishop Oda died a little time before King Edwy, and in his place Elfsine, bishop of Winchester, was appointed. But Elfsine set out to Rome to get his pall from the pope, and died of cold in crossing the Alps. In 959, the first 1 It is first told by Osbem, who wrote about 1070. the king to penance.
May ig.] 6*. Dunstan. year of King Edgar, Dunstan was chosen to the archbishopric of Canterbury,1 and the next year he went to Rome and got his pall from Pope John XII. For the time Dunstan had all his own way, and he and Ethelwald, bishop of Winchester, Oswald, bishop of Worcester, and others of their party, turned the secular priests out of many of the chief churches of England, and put in monks. Dunstan was the king's chief adviser, and the laws of Edgar, his strict government, the peace and prosperity of England under him, and his authority over all the other princes of Britain, speak for themselves, and we cannot doubt the wisdom and prudence of the great counsellor. That the cares of office in Church and State did not prevent S. Dunstan from cultivating his darling art of music appears from a pretty story told by his biographer. One night the archbishop dreamt that he was at a royal wedding feast, and was listening to the song of the minstrels, when one of the harpers, a youth in white raiment, came to him, and asked why he did not join in the nuptial hymn. “Because I know not the words and the strain,” said the sleeper. Then the young harper played and sang to him, “ O Rex gentium dominator omnium, propter sedem Majestatis tuae da nobis indulgentiam, Rex Christe, peccatorum, Alleluia.” On awaking he repeated to himself the words and music, and calling together the singers of Canterbury, taught them the antiphon, and committed it to writing, lest it should be forgotten. Nor did he forget his monks at Glastonbury, but visited them and knew each personally, and not they only, but all the little scholars in the monastery school. One day Dunstan was at Bath, which he visited yearly 1 On the day that he said mass for the first time in Canterbury Cathedral, a white dove appeared fluttering over his head. The bird afterwards perched on Bishop Odo’s tomb.
for the sake of the hot springs. After dinner, falling into an abstracted mood, he saw one of the little boys of Glastonbury borne heavenward by angels. A day or two after a monk from Glastonbury came to Bath to see Dunstan. “How are all the brethren ? ” asked the abbot. “All are well,” answered the monk. “What all?” again asked Dunstan.” “ All but one little fellow, a boy who is dead.” “ God rest his happy spirit,” said S. Dunstan; “ I have seen him borne by angels to everlasting peace.” Now Dunstan was the friend and counsellor of the king, whom he probably loved. But Edgar, if an excellent administrator of the laws, was not a man of peculiarly virtuous life. Some of the stories told of him are most probably false, but others must be true. Osbern, the biographer of S. Dunstan, says that the king had been guilty of a great crime. He had dishonoured a nun. Shortly after, Dunstan came into his presence. The king, as usual, extended his hand to him, but the archbishop, with flashing eye, folded his arms, and turned abruptly away, exclaiming, “ I am no friend to the enemy of Christ.” The king, awed, threw himself at his feet. Then S. Dunstan bitterly reproached him, and he saw that Edgar was moved to true contrition; he laid on him a penance, that for seven years he was not to wear his crown, and was to fast twice in the week.
He was determined to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, and his efforts drew on him bitter hatred. “ Let them live canonically or go out of the Church,” said he. A gathering of both parties was held at Caine, in a large hall. The opposition was headed by a Scottish bishop called Heornel, or Bernal.1 After a long altercation, Dunstan, now very aged, exclaimed, “ We have wasted 1 Hector Boece calls him Fothadh, and pretends that he obtained the victory over S. Dunstan.
much time in endless dispute; I confess I cannot force you to obedience. But I appeal to Christ, to His judgment I commit the cause of His Church.” Scarcely had he said the words than, with a crash, a portion of the roof fell on his opponents, and they escaped from the ruins bruised and with broken bones.
On the death of King Edgar, before another king could be chosen, there was a great movement against the monks. Elthere, alderman of the Mercians, and others, began to turn the monks out of several churches, and to bring back the secular canons with their wives. But Ethelwin, aiderman of the East-Angles, whom men called “ the Friend of God,” gathered a meeting of the wise-men of his own earldom, and they determined to keep the monks, and they joined with Brithnorth, alderman of the East-Saxons, and assembled an army to defend the monasteries. Meanwhile there was a dispute who should be king. Both the sons of Edgar were very young; Ethelred was about seven, Edward about thirteen. Of the two it was most natural to choose Edward, and King Edgar, before he died, had said that he wished it to be so. But some were in favour of Ethelred. An assembly was called for the election of a king. Then Dunstan took his cross, and leading Edward into the midst of the assembly, stood and demanded the throne for him. All bowed to the authority, and Edward was consecrated by the archbishop, in 975. The story of his death has been already told (March 18th). When Dunstan was called to crown Ethelred, in 979, as he placed the golden circle on the boy’s brow, he said, if we may trust Osbern, “ Since thou hast attained the kingdom through the death of thy brother, whom thy mother hath shamefully slain, the sword shall never depart from thy house, till it hath cut it off, and the crown shall pass to one of another race and language.”
[May ig. On the feast of the Ascension, in the year 968, S. Dunstan sang mass and preached to the people with singular unction. After he had returned to the altar to complete the sacrifice, he turned to give the benediction, and then again he addressed the people, and announced to them that he was about to die. After the conclusion of mass, he went to the refectory and dined, then returned to the church and pointed out the place where he desired to be laid. Three days after, he was no more. In Art S. Dunstan is chiefly honoured by a foolish representation of the devil caught by the nose by a pair of blacksmiths pincers. The legend relates that Satan tempted him as he was at work at his forge, by assuming the form of a beautiful girl. Dunstan at once attacked him with his pincers and put him to flight.
